New toy

baldie · December 21, 2011

It is indeed a truly ridiculous situation.

Ireland was limited to .22 centrefire only in private possesion Eldon, which is why the .220 swift is so popular over in the Emerald isle.

As i stated earlier, the majority of FAC,s were/are held for self defence, due to the troubles, which are now thankfully over.

Can you imagine what would happen to a man on the mainland putting self defence down as good reason on an FAC ?

Its great however, that Ireland has had enough foresight, and not to mention , leverage in the UK parliamentry system, to see the return of fullbore and pistol ownership. Thankfully, the powers that be there, know full well that the man on the street never presented any threat with a legally held firearm. The Terrorists didn,t have tickets.

One day the government here may trust us again. I firmly believe we will get .22 pistols back, and it may be the one good thing the olympics may do for us.

A lot of people would be quite satisfied to own a normal length semi auto again. It would enable us to shoot all the old comps again.

brown dog · December 21, 2011

I don't know, but I've always had the impression that the NI 'anomaly' relates entirely to the terrorist situation (that's still very much ongoing, despite what our press and politicians would have you believe) and the difficulty in imposing Law to enable personal defence weapons without getting involved in all sorts of unecessary and expensive legal complications; so an unintended by-product is that people can get sporting pistols too.

Not sure the situation is something to envy.

6.5shooter · December 21, 2011

Yes it is quite a tricky subject, fortunatly as Baldy says, no legally held firearm has been involved in any terrorist activity.

I think that if there ever was a serious juggle of the law may occur and there is a chance we could loose our pistols.

Seriois security checks and scruitiny is carried out even to this day as I had to fill in quite a large document a few years back so that I could be checked out so that I or none of my family or relatives have been invloved in any terrorism before I was allowed to shoot on MOD ranges.

I remember applying for my swift and it took 9 months before I even had and land inspections so it still is quite hardto get what you want here for hunting purposes, any thing larger than 223 usually involves alot of questions. 6mm is out of the equation unless deer is the target.

So in situations we are fortunate but in others not so fortunate and as far as rifles are concerned it is still easier to get what you want over on the mainland.